23/01/2026
The sound and the art
Maestro Stefano Conia Senior, dean of the Cremonese luthiers, has turned eighty, a central figure in late twentieth-century violin making and a direct witness to an unrepeatable era of the Cremona school. Conia is a man from another time: charismatic,...
“When Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was first premiered it was branded as unlistenable music, while Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was judged by the leading critic of the time as music that ‘smells of cheap spirits’; today they are...
There is a sentence that, read today, sounds like an alarm bell for the entire Italian cultural system: “Music risks becoming a job for the rich.” This is not a provocative slogan, but the bitter summary of what emerges from an investigation by...
The 2026 edition of the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition will be a special edition entirely devoted to the cello and marked by a triple anniversary: the 150th anniversary of the birth of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (1876–1965), the 150th...
It is customary, after the feast of Holy Christmas, whether one is a believer or not, to go “from church to church” to admire the Nativity scenes on display. Each year, those who set out to recreate the setting of the Grotto of Bethlehem introduce...
The Ridotto of the Teatro Ponchielli hosted the final concert of the second edition of Connect, Learn and Research, a training program promoted by the Municipality of Cremona as part of the 2025 initiatives of the Plan for the Safeguarding of Traditional...
The film Stradivari, directed by Giacomo Battiato and starring Anthony Quinn as the great violin maker, was an iconic event. The crew filmed in Cremona from September 6 to 20, 1987, involving the entire city. It was an unforgettable moment, still vivid in the...
The CoP20 of CITES, which met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from 24 November to 5 December 2025 with representatives from 180 nations, has made a decision that will change the future international use of Pernambuco (Paubrasilia echinata), a wood species widely...
Twenty years after the beginning of my career as a luthier, I began to ask myself a simple question: What is the meaning of my work? The opportunity to reflect concretely on the subject was given to me during the guitar festival of the “A....
The first event of I Concerti della Stauffer will take place on Saturday, December 13. The series is curated by the Stauffer Academy of Cremona. Roman Simovic will lead the Stauffer String Ensemble as conductor and also perform as solo violinist in a program...
